


What is burned down in fear and anger

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: (i think), Gen, I just have a lot of feelings about this movie okay, Oneshot, POV T'Challa (Marvel), Post-Black Panther (2018), Short & Sweet, background T'Challa/Nakia, heart shaped herb musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 20:03:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13934310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: What is burned down in fear and anger will not remain destroyed. T’Challa knows this, so on nights when he cannot sleep, he settles amongst blackened leaves and waits.It is a quiet vigil. The walls still bear the mark of fire, even these months after; he has chosen to let the burns stay. To do otherwise would be to alter the history that happened in this chamber, and he will not turn his eye away from it. It is a quiet sort of peace, a way to say, Yes, these things happened, and I will live with them.____________Short musings on heart shaped herbs and Wakanda and T'Challa. T'Challa's POV.





	What is burned down in fear and anger

________________________

 

What is burned down in fear and anger will not remain destroyed. T’Challa knows this, so on nights when he cannot sleep, he settles amongst blackened leaves and waits.

It is a quiet vigil. The walls still bear the mark of fire, even these months after; he has chosen to let the burns stay. To do otherwise would be to alter the history that happened in this chamber, and he will not turn his eye away from it. It is a quiet sort of peace, a way to say, Yes, these things happened, and I will live with them.

Now and then Shuri sits with him, but that is usually only when she’s bored in her lab or needs to take a soil sample. He helps as best he can. Some of her designs are still so beyond his reach that it’s easiest to let her do what she must, even if his ignorance invites mockery. There was a time he feared never again hearing her make fun of him. The fact that he can sit here while she affectionately insults him makes T’Challa feel centered. His baby sister has always been so sure of herself that he feels grounded just being near her.

The night Nakia returns from Oakland, he takes her to the herb garden and she tells him about the ocean. T’Challa has flown over it before, has swum in it once during a university holiday. Hearing her talk about how vast it is, though, he meets it anew. Nakia buries her hands in soil and they stay there until morning and T’Challa can almost taste the saltwater when she kisses him goodnight.

Morning comes on quiet feet after these kinds of nights. The sunset is beautiful, but seeing the sun rise over the Golden City is always so lovely T’Challa’s heart nearly bursts from the pure beauty of it. Nakia beside him looks at him and he sees her in the sunlight, and she is lovelier than both. He tells her she outshines the sun. She tells him she loves him and he tells her the same and they sit softly quiet with each other and the wakening city.

He can see the herb garden from the throne room. It is difficult not to remember his cousin sitting in his own place, and he wonders if the smoke from the garden was visible then, whether N’Jadaka could see it through the windows. He thinks, most likely. Most likely you could see it.

Shuri tells him one day that there are trace pathways connecting the mines to the herb garden. This he cannot see, so he listens to his sister’s explanation and asks questions about what this means that the pathways are giving off greater energy than before. She does not say the herbs will regrow, but she says she is hopeful for something. She tells him to be careful that the vibranium doesn’t affect his immune system and it is dinner already before he realizes she was joking.

It makes sense, that maybe the herbs were hiding below ground until the surface was more kind. He had once accidentally burned a small corner of the garden when his father had first taken him to see the herbs. T’Chaka had put out the fire immediately, but when T’Challa went back there was no sign of the plants.

He can’t remember how that corner had looked on his coronation day. He has to hope it bloomed. It must have been in bloom. T’Challa tells himself this and he hopes the vibranium below the surface has kept the roots alive.

It is an evolutionary response. He walks through his country’s markets and fields and grasses and knows it is a response he has grown with. It is as much in his blood as the heart shaped herb itself.

They were right in the past to hide their borders and keep quiet. Wakanda would not have been able to keep itself and the world safe, and so relied on vibranium until it was self-sufficient. But hiding has lasted too long. Nakia was right, he thinks, and he tells her this again. If he tells her once a day for as long as they live, perhaps he will start to right this wrong. There is so much good that could have been done.

His sister’s lab has found a pathway stretching almost to the border and he wonders if, maybe, vibranium will reach all around the globe. He is halfway to hoping it does when he remembers all that could go wrong if people with cruel hearts developed crueler technology. Wakanda should not be the judge, jury, and executioner all at once, but it will help the world decide what to do if need be. They will forever have this seat at the table.

T’Challa asks Shuri to keep an eye on it, but to let it go as it pleases. Perhaps the surface is safer now. Or, it not so safe, perhaps there are enough people with good hearts who will make it so.

During the daytime T’Challa and Nakia and Okoye attend United Nations strategy meetings and hold council sessions and he allows three journalists into Wakandan borders, and then a television crew, and then a documentary crew, and for a year and then longer they host a school study abroad program. At night, T’Challa sits with still burned leaves and wants so badly it aches.

He promises to do better. He says this first to the garden and then to Nakia and the council and then to the world. When asked, he says, “Everything.” 

When asked again he lays out plans for greater outreach. T’Challa envisions outreach centers in every country that will have them, and Shuri talks with world renowned scientists on how to start solving global science issues. Nakia debates politicians for hours and hours on refugee aid and poverty and hunger, and she is the one who comes up with the idea of adding vibranium to fertilizer. If it changed plantlife in Wakanda, surely it can do similar things elsewhere, and this time they will have one hand on the controls. 

Shuri lectures them on subjects T’Challa did not cover at Oxford. Around two weeks after the idea is introduced, she hands him a prototype and a quip about being the smarter child. He doesn’t argue with her, but he does hug her tight. He always knew she would help solve the world’s problems.

Nakia is with him as he spreads the fertilizer over the scorched garden. As she waters the earth, he whispers,  _ it is safe now. _ T’Challa hopes the earth hears.

When they are finished, they lie down next to the sands and hold each other close. Nakia outlines his face with her fingers and he kisses her, once, twice, and they fall asleep.

Sunlight breaks unsteadily through the ceiling in the morning. T’Challa wakes up first and when he rolls onto his side, he cries.

What is burned down in fear and anger will not remain destroyed. T’Challa knows this, so this morning after he has slept long and full, he looks in tearful wonder at the green sprouts budding from the soil.

_ It is safe now. I will make it safe now. _

The sunlight makes the garden glow. T’Challa cups one of the sprouts in his hands, and it shimmers in the light.

________________________

**Author's Note:**

> This movie man  
> There's maybe more going to happen with this, but I just saw it again and cried again and wanted to get something out there
> 
> Thanks for reading ^^ I'm on tumblr! [Come say hi :)](http://weneverfreeze.tumblr.com)


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